Russia’s southern crops were damaged by drought in Krasnodar and some adjacent regions, the country’s traditional breadbasket and main grain exporting area, said Viktor Zubkov, acting first deputy prime minister.

Russia’s fishing catches will increase 41 percent to 6.05 million metric tons by 2020 from a targeted 4.3 million tons this year, First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov said in an article published today in the government newspaper, Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

Russia’s government will maintain plans to halt grain exports after the country’s worst drought in more than 50 years, rejecting calls from farmers, exporters and millers to delay until September the ban due to begin next week.

OAO Gazprom, the world’s biggest natural-gas producer, is discussing a possible loan from China to help build a $25 billion pipeline to supply the world’s fastest-growing major economy as demand in Europe weakens.